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According to: http://povertythinkagain.com/controve...
Georgism, Capitalism, and Socialism
Some people have mistakenly called Henry George either a capitalist or a socialist, but he was not either, at least not in any simple sense. One might say that George’s philosophy mixes capitalism and socialism, but it is more accurate to say that it is a distinctive philosophy that is neither capitalist nor socialist.
The central principles of capitalism in its purest form are
1) free exchange of goods in an unregulated market;

The price of living in a modern, civilized nation, it nevertheless rankles when part of our earnings are deducted leaving less to spend on our families, every purchase incurring sales tax making life more expensive and shrinking our purchasing power, every enterprise paying what feel like fines for success.

Some pundits perennially complain of being taxed into the poorhouse, even as they drive fancy convertibles or build expensive home studios.

The new government of Thailand plans to introduce new taxes before the beginning of the new fiscal year, which starts next month.

Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha said, “Tax collection in this new fiscal year will be broadened to boost state revenue and promote fairness. This will include inheritance and land taxes. This would have a limited impact on low-income earners, while tax benefits that favour the rich will be eliminated.”

Australians are routinely being told that hefty mining taxes would hinder the country’s exports of coal and iron ore. However, mining giant BHP Billiton recently increased its profits by 83% to US $8.1bn. In spite of this enormous growth, the company only paid US $29m in minerals resource rent tax (MRRT). As it stands, the tax is in no way making BHP uncompetitive.

Imagine a new streetcar or subway line were built and extra money started magically appearing in cash registers of businesses along it; along the route, especially at stops, landlords suddenly got a cash bonus with their monthly rent cheques....

The Total Resource Rents of Australia report finds the complete removal of income, company and sales tax is possible by replacement with a tax on monopolies such as water trading, cyber squatting, taxi licenses and land.

“Economists have for hundreds of years pointed to a more efficient system by harnessing the naturally rising value of scarce resources as the tax base. Few reports have calculated if this is actually possible” said report author Karl Fitzgerald.

Expensive farmland close to millions of people is best suited for school kids on field trips, families on farm vacations, and young people learning about agriculture, and for growing labour-intensive crops like organic vegetables, fruit, meat and eggs, not low-value crops like corn and soy.

New taxes on sales, gas and HOV lanes may be “fair and balanced” but they will be aggressively opposed and politically damaging to any government imposing them.

A far more politically defensible way to finance Toronto transit is Land Value Capture. The Ontario and municipal governments should finance the new transit by collecting the rise in land value that the new projects produce — a process that makes transit self-financing, with no need for other taxes.

Google the following:
Land Value Capture as a Tool to Finance Public Transit Projects in Canada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX5gzRnUfSw Francis K. Peddle, J.D., Ph.D., is currently Vice-President -- Academic Affairs at the Dominican University College, Ottawa, Canada and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy. He is a barrister and solicitor and has been a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada for over twenty years.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is right to forge ahead with Toronto-area transit upgrades, even over the complaints of parochial mayors. However, instead of new taxes and tolls – which will pit suburban dwellers against downtown residents and businesses – the new transit should be financed by collecting the rise in land values that the new infrastructure itself will generate.

Land-value capture makes warranted transit “self-financing,” with no need for politically unpopular new tolls or taxes.

Geoism is the social philosophy and theory of absolute human equality, with the belief that each person is properly and fully a self-owner and an equal owner of the surplus from nature and from communities.
Human equality is the proposition that all human beings have an equal moral worth, because there is in human nature no inherent master/slave or superior/inferior relationship. Geoism takes equality to its complete logical conclusion.

How can that be? Well, it’s because in Ontario, as across Canada, property tax is actually two taxes: a tax on land, and a tax on buildings.

Taxing land value is fair, because a site’s value stems from the community around it; land rent is higher in the middle of a bustling city than in a quiet village, and higher in a town than in a remote wilderness.

Warranted new projects (parks, schools, transit, roads, hospitals) always raise local land values more than the cost of the project. Presently this wealth disappears into the pockets of local land owners. Instead, Land Value Taxation should be used to finance the infrastructure.

You can learn as much about a country from its silences as you can from its obsessions. The issues politicians do not discuss are as telling and decisive as those they do. While the government’s cuts beggar the vulnerable and gut public services, it’s time to talk about the turns not taken, the opportunities foregone: the taxes which could have spared us every turn of the screw.